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Anatomy of a Political SPAM Attack

© Ken Goldstein

You know it's really an election year when your daily SPAM turns from promises to help you loose weight, re-finance your house, and grow your private parts (or all three, while you sleep) to friends passing on newly uncovered "facts" about the political candidates.

I will be using my column this month to dissect one such email I recently received. I do this as a public service: to demonstrate how easy it is to de-construct one of these propaganda masterpieces so that you will be a more savvy reader of them and be able to tell when they are completely full of (expletive deleted).

Important note: The message I'm looking at here was an attack on Kerry, but these types of things come from ALL parties and sides. My point is not just to refute the attack on this candidate, but to show you how to spot garbage when it arrives in your inbox, whatever political point-of-view it may espouse.

Here's how the email opens:

> Sen. John Kerry keeps talking about U.S. corporations leaving this
> country and setting up shop in foreign countries, taking thousands of
> jobs with them. He is right, because that has happened. However, he is
> trying to blame it on George W. Bush.
>
> As far as I know, Bush has not moved one factory out of this country
> because he is not the owner of a single factory.
>
> That cannot be said about Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz-Kerry.
> According to the Wall Street Journal, the Kerrys own 32 factories in
> Europe and 18 in Asia and the Pacific. In addition, their company, the
> Heinz Company, leases four factories in Europe and four in Asia.
> Also, they own 27 factories in North America, some of which are in Mexico and
> the Caribbean ... (edit) ... However, Kerry
> demands that other companies that relocate should pay the same benefits
> they did in the U.S. Why does he not demand this of the Heinz Company,
> since he is married to the owner?
>
> (...and on and on)

The email continues, but you get the point: John Kerry is a hypocrite - This is proved by showing that "his" Heinz Company, and "his" factories, have gone overseas while he claims to stand for American companies keeping jobs here. But is John Kerry really "married to the owner" of the Heinz Company? And are they hypocrites and liars regarding sending jobs overseas?

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